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chris_chester 's review for:
The House of the Spirits
by Isabel Allende
So many threads to this I could focus on, I hardly know where to start.
I picked up The House of the Spirits after asking for recommendations for literature that would give me some insight into the country of Chile. And boy does it. Though it starts as a hazy, bucolic work set in the countryside at the turn of the century, it eventually starts steamrolling until it slams full force into the horrors of the Pinochet dictatorship.
I've been reading a lot about the shenanigans perpetrated by the U.S. State Department and CIA in Latin America lately, so it was a little cathartic to jump into the perspective of several narrators that were able to de-Anglo the narrative for me a little bit.
There's a temptation to view what happened to a country like Chile in the 20th century as merely an extension of the Cold War, but when you see things through the perspective of the conservative land owner Esteban Trueba or the tortured revolutionary Alba, you're reminded that people pursued their politics for their own reasons and with their own convictions.
What was perhaps lacking was a look inside the head of the Esteban Garcia's of the world, who used the veil of a military coup to commit senseless atrocities, but Allende seems to focus more on forgiveness than trying to plumb the depths of human darkness.
As for the writing itself, I felt like it was eminently readable. The reviews I've read here and elsewhere seemed to stress that this was a book in the magical realism tradition that focused almost exclusively on the perspective of the female characters, but I didn't actually find this to be the case.
The magical realism, such as it exists, is quite a bit softer than in the novel's oft-cited cousin One Hundred Years of Solitude. There's certainly a belief in magic that colors the perspective and reality of the narrators, but it seemed to me that Allende was careful not to include anything that the modern reader couldn't smirk off as superstitious.
And while the female characters are the spine (or pillars, as I believe Allende refers to a side character towards the end), Esteban Trueba is arguably the main character. I didn't feel like this a female-dominated book at all.
In any case, this was a terrific read that gave me enough of a flight of fancy, but still kept it grounded enough in reality that I feel like I actually learned something. That's a strong recommendation in my book.
I picked up The House of the Spirits after asking for recommendations for literature that would give me some insight into the country of Chile. And boy does it. Though it starts as a hazy, bucolic work set in the countryside at the turn of the century, it eventually starts steamrolling until it slams full force into the horrors of the Pinochet dictatorship.
I've been reading a lot about the shenanigans perpetrated by the U.S. State Department and CIA in Latin America lately, so it was a little cathartic to jump into the perspective of several narrators that were able to de-Anglo the narrative for me a little bit.
There's a temptation to view what happened to a country like Chile in the 20th century as merely an extension of the Cold War, but when you see things through the perspective of the conservative land owner Esteban Trueba or the tortured revolutionary Alba, you're reminded that people pursued their politics for their own reasons and with their own convictions.
What was perhaps lacking was a look inside the head of the Esteban Garcia's of the world, who used the veil of a military coup to commit senseless atrocities, but Allende seems to focus more on forgiveness than trying to plumb the depths of human darkness.
As for the writing itself, I felt like it was eminently readable. The reviews I've read here and elsewhere seemed to stress that this was a book in the magical realism tradition that focused almost exclusively on the perspective of the female characters, but I didn't actually find this to be the case.
The magical realism, such as it exists, is quite a bit softer than in the novel's oft-cited cousin One Hundred Years of Solitude. There's certainly a belief in magic that colors the perspective and reality of the narrators, but it seemed to me that Allende was careful not to include anything that the modern reader couldn't smirk off as superstitious.
And while the female characters are the spine (or pillars, as I believe Allende refers to a side character towards the end), Esteban Trueba is arguably the main character. I didn't feel like this a female-dominated book at all.
In any case, this was a terrific read that gave me enough of a flight of fancy, but still kept it grounded enough in reality that I feel like I actually learned something. That's a strong recommendation in my book.